First published 2019
Sarah Broom examines her family's century-long relationship with a shotgun house in New Orleans East through the lens of memory and loss. She traces how her mother Ivory Mae purchased the yellow house in 1961 during the optimistic Space Race era, when NASA operated a major plant nearby. After Ivory Mae's second husband Simon died six months after Sarah's birth, the house sheltered a family of twelve children while slowly deteriorating. Broom left New Orleans but found herself drawn back to confront what the house meant to her family's identity. She chronicles her mother's battle against the building's decay and explores how Hurricane Katrina erased the physical structure but not its emotional hold. The memoir reveals the gap between the mythologized New Orleans tourists know and the reality of neglected neighborhoods like New Orleans East. Broom argues that her family's story deserves recognition alongside the city's more celebrated narratives. She examines how class, race, and systemic inequality shaped her upbringing while celebrating the resilience of familial bonds. The book offers readers an intimate portrait of place and belonging that expands beyond traditional New Orleans storytelling.
Genres: family, family-life, american, african-american, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, family-saga, resilience
Setting: New Orleans, New Orleans East
Period: 1961, Space Race
376 pages · Hardcover · Grove Press